Seven--Quincy Gets an Agent

After Quincy won his first million playing online, he discovered a mild form of revenge on his daily schoolyard chess foe by engaging the services of Piotr Gleeman.  They had both indifferently floated through Ingoll’s and now found themselves sharing four classes at Lincoln High School.  Quincy hired Piotr during lunch on the first day of school during the tenth grade by balancing a ten-thousand dollar brick of cash on Piotr’s head and saying, “Guess what just happened?”

Piotr jerked his head and the money plopped onto his tray of mashed potatoes.

“You’re my agent!  That’s your first month’s salary.”

Piotr just stared at the money.  He seemed afraid to touch it.

Quincy’s choice of Piotr would turn out to be one of the best decisions he would ever make.  Piotr’s father, Yevgeni Chyablinski, had started a thriving business in Kazan importing hand-woven rugs and silk clothes from Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, the most notable stop on the Great Silk Road.  After accumulating enough cash to bribe the director of the regional oblast, Yevgeni found himself with an exit visa and a passport to the United States.  He arrived, found the nearest hooker willing to marry him and bear him a son for $50,000—$40,000 if the child was born a daughter—and became a U.S. citizen within eighteen months.  He changed his named to the warmest, most trustworthy one that he could imagine, Earnest Gleeman, and Piotr was born eleven months later.

Piotr’s career as Quincy’s agent, as it came to pass, would make Earnest Gleeman’s string of successes look like the track record of a seven-year college senior majoring in general studies.

When Quincy dropped the brick of Benjamins into Piotr’s food, Piotr’s first and only thought was, I’m going to ride this chess donkey until all of the money runs out.  I’m going to bleed him dry like a tick.  He would achieve his goal by being the best possible poker agent in the universe.